


The Haunting Period

by macabre



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-03
Updated: 2009-07-03
Packaged: 2017-11-08 12:37:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macabre/pseuds/macabre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An alternate route out of hell for Dean, one that does not involve angels or sanity intact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Haunting Period

**Author's Note:**

> The last line and title are borrowed from _Cashback_.

It never stays quiet long after dark. Most patients are either terrified of the night or of the dreams they have when they finally fall asleep, forced by the hand of the nurses and their medication. Sam, after spending most of his life working under the cover of dark, has now come to hate the sun setting just as much; he hates it because he has to live with the screaming and body flailing that comes with it.

His brother, Dean, who came to the hospital with no name and was christened Michael for convenience, is no exception. It starts with the tensing shoulders when the light starts to fade, the shadows of the blinds on his barred windows growing and slanting further across the floor, and grows into full on shaking. When the light is completely gone, Dean screams like most of his neighbors, but Sam hears his above all others.

Every patient is required to attend both group and private therapy with one of the three psychiatrists on staff. Sam knows what his file says – depression, referred to the hospital after walking purposefully in front of a truck, no family or friends except one emergency contact that the hospital can never seem to reach. After two months of therapy with Dr. Mercer, Sam knows he’s been diagnosed as having major depression, unaffected by drug treatments. Sam picked depression because he thought it would be the easiest condition to uphold, and it really does shock him when he finds out how true this becomes. It’s hard to smile when Dean doesn’t recognize him most days, or chooses not to anyway.

He might as well be Michael – the Dean he knew is long gone, and Sam has given up hope of ever seeing him again. Sam didn’t understand the full extent of the problem when Dean first showed up a few months back, drifting along a major highway only partially clothed and bloody, some kind soul calling an ambulance for him. Sam didn’t know why the first hospital wouldn’t let him see his brother, finally telling him that the patient didn’t know him and didn’t want to see him. When Dean was transferred to a psych ward, Sam knew there was only one way to get through to him then. So he had one drink so the accident couldn’t be blamed on intoxication, then threw himself in front of a truck going by.

His new scars from the truck match nicely with the old hunting scars, now scars of self-destruction behavior to his doctor. Of course, many of the scars come from knives and guns, so really Sam feels like he’s just stepped into an alternate state of being. He could be a depressive in another life, a life probably not that far from his own. Some days Sam thinks it was all headed down that path anyway.

Dean, despite his screaming and hammering at the walls at night, is mostly docile during the day, whether this is from meds or not, Sam isn’t sure. Dean had been there for two weeks before Sam was admitted, and in that time his behavior might have changed already. Still, Dean is a favorite of several of the nurses because he is so quiet during those hours. He is not an attention demanding patient, easy to be around as he pads softly back and forth down the halls. Even in his current state, Dean prefers to be doing something rather than watching the television like most of the patients, many of them catatonic anyway.

Sam was given the equivalent of a crazy patient’s restraining order from Dean after spending all his time following him around after being admitted from treatment from the truck accident. It was hard for Sam to keep up with his brother then, his left leg busted up pretty good, but he managed well enough that Dean complained to the nursing staff.

But Sam is crazy, so they really can’t stop him from seeing Dean. He keeps his distance at times so as to not really upset the staff, but he still tries to talk to Dean quietly when he can find his brother alone. Dean isn’t much for the company of anyone, so it’s not so hard.

Sam has lost track of his original plan upon admittance; he supposes it went something like find Dean, talk to him, and bust both of them out somehow. But he didn’t know that Dean would ignore him and forget him, and now Sam isn’t sure how he’ll ever get out let alone with Dean in tow. Sam has done a pretty good job of convincing Mercer of his serious illness, enough that Sam has even convinced himself, although all Mercer wants to talk about these days is Dean. The doctor must have run out of other juice.

“According to Barnes Hospital, someone claiming to be Michael’s brother stopped by while he was being treated for injuries,” Mercer reads from a vanilla folder. Sam doesn’t say anything, so the doctor goes on.

“Are you his brother?”

“No.”

“Then why did you say that?” Mercer scrunches up his nose and moves it rapidly in a small circle, a trait that reminds Sam of a rabbit. He almost shit in his pants the one day he finally caught Mercer nibbling on a carrot.

“They wouldn’t let me see him if I wasn’t family,” Sam replies. His eyes are tired. He’s added insomnia to his file recently.

“Then how do you know Michael? Or Dean, is it that you call him?”

“I don’t know him.”

He’s successfully convinced Mercer that he is crazier than he looks. And possibly a stalker.

Sam’s favorite time quickly becomes the moments right before dusk, the calm before the storm. During the day Dean acts like he’s forgotten the horrors of hell, and in those last moments before the sun starts fading, Dean is still. He always looks thoughtful, and at this time Sam can get reasonably close to Dean without upsetting him. A few times, Dean has even let Sam hold his hand while they wait for the dark to come.

When the sunlight looks longer on his brother’s face and his brother starts to tense, Sam thinks his brother is the most beautiful. Dean wasn’t meant for the full sunlight of day; he was meant for this pale imitation stuck between two worlds. Sam was meant for this as well, but he finds himself better suited to night anyway.

It’s strange, watching Dean wander around in clothes the facility provided for him. The ill-fitting shirts hide what once was defined muscle and tested skin, and Sam wonders what happened to his brother’s leather jacket, the one he used to steal years ago just to smell Dean unabashedly, or the protective amulet that he gave to Dean that Christmas so long ago.

The nurses aren’t the only ones who notice Sam watching Dean all day long – a few of the other patients living in the same building seem to have picked this fact up too. One middle-aged woman announces to the whole group in therapy that Sam loves Michael, to which the counselor makes a point to focus on why this patient thinks that and defining love and relationships rather than pestering Sam about it. Sam is only grateful that Dean is not in his group for therapy, not that he would have said a damn thing about it.

This psych ward is every stereotype of an insane asylum; the walls are mostly white, and yes, there are padded rooms, although Sam has never been in one. He’s seen beds with cuffs for hands and feet. He has watched as nurses charge down the halls with needles when patients get too loud or destructive. The nurses wear ugly green scrubs, not the short white miniskirts that he’s sure Dean would have appreciated.

On the days when Dean absolutely will not Sam anywhere near him, Cody keeps Sam company. Cody has a crush on Sam; he’s told him on several occasions. Sam doesn’t mind because Cody seems content to say the affection only, and maybe for Cody this is the only thing that defines relationships – the said sentiment. No need to act upon it. Either way, Cody is friendly enough that he almost pulls a smile from Sam in hell.

Cody is one of the cases Sam thinks about. While some of the patients can be diagnosed on spot, others Sam can’t figure out. Cody is friendly and affectionate. He’s rail-thin and looks like he experimented with a lot of drugs before he came to the hospital, but Sam’s not sure about his mental facilities. Cody is a little detached from the real world, but Sam doesn’t know what to call that. Maybe healthy.

After five months in, Sam has a visitor. He knows who it is, of course. His emergency contact, Bobby. The younger Winchester had started worrying that something happened to the man after all the failed attempts the institution had in contacting him.

Sam doesn’t see Bobby that day. Or the next. One of the privileges of being crazy is that he can refuse to see someone, visitor or even his doctor on occasion. He has to act shaken and manic those days to pull it off, but the nurse doesn’t push it. It’s obvious to her that Bobby poses a threat to his mental well being.

Sam knows that Bobby understands Dean is in there with him; he’s probably checked every news article about the mysterious suicidal man committed to a ward. Sam doubts there was much of a fuss about a John Doe sent here, but Bobby was sure to find out somehow. Wondering if Bobby will try to spring them in the night, Sam sinks further in himself hoping that Bobby doesn’t. He doesn’t want Bobby to see Dean at night. He doesn’t want Bobby to see him with his shaved head and jagged scarring.

The ward has become more of a home than Sam’s ever had.

The necropolis. That’s what Sam wants to call it. Home. Necropolis. It has no relevant meaning; it’s standing in the cemetery when he knows he’s standing on someone’s grave, but there aren’t any markers. It’s a graveyard in the unshakeable feeling and nothing else. There are more ghosts in the hospital than Sam has seen all those years on the road.

Six months and Sam is just as crazy as he pretends to be. He is convinced that either Dean is still in hell or he actually did kill himself. Either way, this is all a dream. Maybe Bobby put him there. Bobby never tried to spring him and gave up on visits a couple of weeks ago. Sam mostly sits with the catatonics now. He need not pay them much attention. He doesn’t have to pay attention to anything. Sam lets the shadows advance at him. He can’t bring himself to care.

Plotting to get a hold of his brother’s folder seems impossible now – too hard to think out. It was once a small goal Sam had set for himself. Now he’s content to sit in the halls alone. Even Cody seems weary of him.

Sam scares himself. He thinks about shrinking in his body because he doesn’t feel as big as he used to. Dr. Mercer prescribes him more meds. Sam worries that they’re going to give him shock therapy next. He thinks they still do that for severe depression.

Then something miraculous happens after Sam has stopped searching for miracles, and it starts like any other night, except it sounds like everyone chose to go off their meds at the same time. There is so much ruckus that seemingly every night watch nurse is running down halls and into different rooms with sedatives.

Something pulls Sam to Dean’s room, a room he’s never actually been in, merely loitered quietly outside. The door is slightly ajar, and it sounds relatively quiet inside. Sam pushes inside and finds restless white walls and an empty bed. His brother stands to the far side of the room, the one nurses can’t easily see unless they come all the way in, swaying lightly on his feet, eyes closed and hands continuously moving from his face to his chest to the opposite elbow to a mock resting position and then violently repeating cycle.

Dean isn’t yelling, but he’s mumbling something under his breath, so Sam gets close, real close, but he still doesn’t understand a word his brother says. It’s nice to be so close to Dean. Sam misses Dean. He could die in this ward and wouldn’t regret it if it meant being with Dean.

The green eyes under his eyelids flicker back and forth. Sam hopes he never wakes up if it means he can stand here and pretend they’re both normal. Normal back in the days of hunting. Sam realizes how normal that all seems now.

Just as Sam relaxes in his brother’s room, the shouts of others drowning in this new sanctuary, a hand flashes out and catches his wrist. Dean’s eyes are still closed, but his fingers are rubbing in circles on Sam’s wrist, over a scar familiar to them both – a possessed housewife with a butcher knife carved a curved line from his wrist toward his palm.

Dean’s body stills and he stops muttering. Sam has stopped breathing.

Sam is prepared for this to be it. He can die in this moment, with his brother’s hand voluntarily on his once again. Sam’s heart feels like it takes up the entire entity left.

“Sam,” Dean rasps, eyes still closed. “Sam. Sam. Sam.”

It goes on, and Sam could sing with happiness. The feeling is so foreign that he feels ill, but he has his hands on his brother’s face and he can’t remember the last time he heard his name actually remembered and said and god, his brother is still the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

Sam pulls his older brother in tight, and he realizes the full extent to how small he feels. Dean feels larger in his arms than he used to, but Sam’s more worried about the abrupt silence outside and the way Dean starts to fall through his arms.

Dean appears to have fainted or gone catatonic on him suddenly, all loose limbs but heavy. Sam lowers him to the ground without letting him go, cradling his brother like he must have when Sam was a baby.

It’s silent for several minutes in the halls, and Sam is worried that he’ll either he caught out of his room or that everyone else has simply vanished and this whole thing really was a nightmare. Sam could be in hell with Dean. It made more sense than anything Sam acknowledged.

Then Dean shakes, full bodied and real, and his eyes finally opening, flashing color in the dark.

“Sam!” This is the voice of Dean. The Dean he knew.

Sam is crying and wanting to throw up. He wishes he looked the way he used to, not half his size and hairless. He’s not sure how Dean recognizes him.

Blinking at him, Dean looks around the room and at his body and then Sam’s.

“Sammy.” It seems to be the only word left in his vocabulary. Sam is glad that he remembers just this one thing.

_This is the haunting period. The time when the demons of regret come for you._


End file.
